Honeymoon or honey and moon

​The word honeymoon, "honey month" or "honeymoon", first appeared in ancient Babylon, years ago, when the ancient Babylon was called simply .... Babylon. 4.000 ago, only a day with a full moon was the right one for a marriage. The groom during the last month before his marriage had to drink a mixture of beer and honey -every day, from the one full moon until the one of his marriage-. That’s how the word honeymoon created.

The mixture of honey and beer was made by the father of the bride. It was believed to be the best method against the evil eye.

Of course over the years this phrase took another sense. Picture Ancient Athenians when they got married, didn’t work at all for a whole month. And that was so not only for men but also for women. Instead, the Spartans were forced to attend the daily war exercises. King Agis of Sparta, once he got married, was forced to abandon his wife immediately after the wedding and to leave for the war. When he returned from the war, he asked as a unique favor to sleep only for the first night at his house. The ephors however denied, sending him straight to the camp.

Katerina Zachari

My name is Katerina Zahari and I was born in noisy Athens, in beautiful Greece. I have studied Philology, Laography, History / Archaeology & History of Art at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. I did my first professional steps preparing students for their introduction examinations to Greek Universities and tutoring children of immigrants who needed to follow Greek school. That was love on first sight: to discover your language further than the limits you imagined that exist, to transfer your language and your culture to other people and to accept their language and culture as a life' s lesson. All these years I have worked in big institutes and cultural centers teaching expats, executives or diplomats. They learned from me Greek and I learned from them to love multiculturality. Every step in my career was a new challenge which brought me more experience and extra knowledge. Since 2013 I live in Amsterdam, in the green Netherlands. Here you experience multiculturality every day and Dutch people love my country and admire her civilization. That make me happy and ready for the next step which still remains a challenge : ''Lato''. Lato is a culture center which has the ambition to bring Greece closer to her friends in the Nederland.